


Winning Isn't Everything

by Silex



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Chess, Family, Game: Resident Evil 7, Games, Gen, Pre-Canon, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:55:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22722043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/pseuds/Silex
Summary: Even when they were little, long before Eveline showed up, Lucas loved his games. Zoe on the other hand wasn't so fond of them. Lucas didn't play to win, not exactly, but he certainly loved making sure that she lost.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Winning Isn't Everything

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Coffin Liqueur (HP_Lovecats)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/gifts).



> Hey there, nice seeing a fellow RE fan in exchanges! Since you're new to exchanges I thought this would be a fun way to say _Welcome to the family_.

Pa had taught them to play chess when Zoe had gone to him complaining that Lucas wasn’t playing their other games right anymore. Pa didn’t ask what she meant, having had to deal with the fallout of more than one game of cards or checkers going awry. Board games had been out of the question ever since the great Mousetrap debacle where Ma had been the one to pick up the board and all the pieces and throw them in the trash.

Never in her life, Ma had exclaimed, had she ever imagined that one of them would have tried to repair a broken spring with one out of a rat trap. When Zoe had been made to move her little plastic mouse under the trap it had sprung with such force that the game pretty much launched itself off the table. She’d screamed and Ma had come running to see what had crashed, then yelled at them both for making such a mess.

Even Lucas had seemed mortified, though more at Ma’s response than how badly he’d frightened Zoe.

The problem with playing games with Lucas was that once he got the hang of any game he either figured out a way to win every time or he started playing to make her lose, which was different from trying to win. With cards he’d start making up new rules, which were fun at first, but then as they grew increasingly complex, made the game more and more confusing until she hardly knew what to do.

Not to mention, she suspected that he stacked the deck, a trick she’d never been able to learn herself.

With board games pieces either went missing when she started winning too much, or he focused less and less on trying to beat her and more and more on making the game drag on for as long as possible through increasingly convoluted strategies and if she won anyway he refused to play the game anymore.

Of course if she lost by too much he’d make fun of her.

The careful balance of winning and losing made most games less fun.

Chess though, chess was safe.

She’d watched Ma and Pa play, bringing the battered wooden board and worn pieces into the den and sitting there, carefully moving each piece in patterns that were impossible for her to follow.

There were rules to the game, complicated rules, enough to make Lucas happy she was sure and he did seem happy with the game.

When Pa explained that the horses, knights he called them, moved in ‘L’ shapes Lucas didn’t even ask why, though he did find it hilarious that the king could only move one square in any direction while the queen could do anything.

Even before he got the hang of the game the queen was Lucas’ favorite piece, to use and to try and take from her. Zoe learned that if she left Lucas’ queen alone, carefully working her way around it, she had the best chance of winning, especially if she offered up her own queen as a sacrifice.

He would always try to take her queen if he got the chance.

Always.

The best part of the game was that Pa would watch them, correcting their mistakes and explaining different tricks to them. He kept things fair and the pieces would never, ever go missing because the game belonged to him and Lucas wouldn’t dare do anything to it, even if he thought he’d be able to blame her. As much as Ma and Pa let him get away with, just because he was a boy, Zoe knew that she was Pa’s favorite.

Even without the excuse of being a boy and rambunctious that way when she broke things Pa was patient with her. Instead of getting yelled at, she was expected to help fix them, if she could, which was fine because she liked trying to put things back together. That was what made her Pa’s favorite.

Lucas liked to build things of course, all sorts of elaborate things that did nothing, but if a window fan broke or the lawnmower needed a new blade he was nowhere to be found, especially if he was the reason the old mower blade had gone missing.

Zoe on the other hand would be right there, excited to drive all the way to the hardware store in town to get the new blade and then to help put it on.

Lucas was an artist, her parents would tell her, while she was down to earth and practical.

It showed in the way they played chess, which they did every night because the game belonged to Pa and playing it made them feel like adults.

They were equally good players, according to Pa, but they played very different. Lucas was quick and aggressive, always wanting to make the first move and trying to keep Zoe on the defensive the whole game. She, on the other hand took her time, played defensively and tried to focus on the bigger picture, trying to anticipate the moves that Lucas might make.

It was hard though, because he was so unpredictable.

Unpredictable like the way he kept playing against her even when she started winning more often than she lost. Lucas stuck to his strategy, tried to trick her, but in chess, unlike life, his tricks were predictable.

He’d always try to kill her queen if the chance presented itself and he hated pawns. Slow and stupid and they got in the way, just like some people, he’d say, sticking out his tongue at her.

She’d make a face back and then, because she was distracted, she might make a stupid move and lose a piece.

Lucas was good at distractions.

He was also good at making things and would always pester Ma and Pa and her to look at the latest thing he’d made.

Ma and Pa would be impressed and ooh and ah whatever thing he’d come up with, and Zoe would roll her eyes.

Which was why it surprised her that one day he ran up to her first, breathless with excitement to show her the thing he’d made out in the old barn.

She’d really like it, he’d promised, and she’d ignored him and gone back to her homework.

“Go tell Ma to go with you,” she’d said when Lucas kept at it.

“Nuh-uh” he’d shaken his head, “It’s not for her. But if you want me to ruin the surprise I’ll tell you what it is.”

That got her interested. She wasn’t one for surprises, those were more of a thing for Lucas, but the possibility of being in on one before it happened? That was more than she was able to pass up.

She closed the work book and looked at him.

“We don’t have to wait for Pa to come home to play chess anymore.”

And that was all she could get out of him.

So she followed him to the old barn and to the little corner that he’d set up as a workshop of his own.

He’d made a chess board, though it took her some time to realize that’s what the thing on the rickety little table was.

The pieces, made of twisted wire, screws and nails looked nothing like Pa’s; she was only able to recognize any of them by where they stood and the dabs of black or white paint on them.

Bishops were nails, tall and straight, pounded through flattened coins so they could stand.

The knights looked more like horses, coat hanger twists for heads and four legs to balance on.

No thought was given to the pawns, just a bunch of washers with wires through them so they could be picked up.

The queens though, they towered over the other pieces, half again as tall as the kings and ornate enough that they each had a crown of polished copper wire.

The board itself was rough cut squares of copper held down by a nail that went all the way through each piece, alternating polish and verdigris.

“Do you want to play?” Lucas asked slyly.

She wanted to say no, that she didn’t want to use Lucas’ dirty chess board with its creepy pieces – she’d just realized that the kings had mouse skulls for heads, but if she said no he might not offer again and the chance to play chess anytime wasn’t something she wanted to pass up.

Even if it meant touching nasty old mouse bones.

As always, Lucas made the first move and she went second.

Back and forth and back and forth.

She was the first to lose a piece, a pawn and just as a test to see what Lucas would do. It was hard to tell, but he seemed to be favoring the right side of the board a little, like maybe he was trying to lure her away from something, but then he’d make a move so random that she’d doubt herself.

Like when he had the prefect chance to take one of her knights with his bishop and didn’t.

That actually stopped her in her tracks for a moment. She’d been so ready to lose that piece that she’d already been planning how to move around his bishop.

Instead he moved one of his rooks, which was maybe part of a move to threaten her queen early on, but she was used to playing without a queen.

Which piece did she care the least about and which move would give her the best opportunity later?

Lucas had a blind spot for knights, his and hers, so arguably the knight was a more valuable piece for her. The queen though, he’d watch that like a hawk.

Pawns fell one by one, clearing out space for the big, dramatic moves that Lucas liked.

There was definitely a pattern to what Lucas was doing, but she wasn’t seeing yet.

“Come on,” Lucas sighed, “You’re being such a slowpoke.”

He always taunted her like that, trying to goad her into making moves faster than she wanted to.

Except it wasn’t just in games. When they were playing together, exploring the overgrown land off the edge of the property he’d tell her to hurry up, jumping nimbly from tree root to fallen log until she was the one who ended up falling in the mud and coming home to be scolded for being a mess.

She moved her queen, just to see what Lucas would do.

He could still take it, but doing so opened up more and better moves for her, setting the stage for her knight to be able to do something useful.

Lucas didn’t take the bait, instead moving his remaining rook back.

His move didn’t makes sense in the context of the game, which, she realized, was the pattern.

He wanted her to do something, to make a specific move.

What was it that she wasn’t seeing?

The looked at the copper squares of the board, the pieces they had left and all the moves that each of them could make.

Lucas was leaving specific squares open on his side of the board, but why?

What was his plan?

She moved a bishop.

He took it.

She moved her queen again.

This time he took it and laughed.

That was normal and now he was likely to get more aggressive.

She moved her knight.

He sighed irritably and moved one of his few remaining pawns.

There was no strategy to the move that she could see, he was just getting it out of the way.

It was perfectly normal.

She ignored the pawn, looking instead at his queen, which he’d barely moved.

That wasn’t normal, but how frustrated he was getting was.

He hated it when she took her time.

“Come on,” he muttered, tapping his feet on the floor, “You know you wanna take her. Look at her sitting there.”

Zoe didn’t though. Taking his queen wouldn’t do her any good, not when the piece was in no position to threaten her and not when there were so many other moves she could make.

She reached for her knight, saw the way Lucas’ eyes lit up and thought that she saw his trap.

He’d take the knight with his queen, moving it out of the way and exposing his king to her bishop.

Lucas leaned forward and then jerked back as she picked up the piece and she assumed that she was right about what he was about to do – the anticipation she saw was him wanting to use his favorite piece to take her favorite piece.

She put the knight down and screamed, jumping back so fast that her knees hit the table, knocking the pieces in all directions as she fell out of her chair.

It was like the piece had bit her.

Lucas was slapping his knee, laughing.

“You should have seen your stupid face!” He gasped, pointing, “Bzzap! And then you jumped back. It was the dumbest, most hilarious thing ever!”

Something was hissing and popping and she could smell burning wood.

Lucas must have noticed at the same time because he jumped up and grabbed an old wooden broom to knock the pieces off the board.

“Careful ya stupid,” he snapped, inspecting the board, “When you knocked all the pieces over a fire might have started from the electricity.”

She stared at him and then at the table.

From the ground she could see the old car battery and all the wires under it.

She looked at her fingers. With how they tingled she expected to see at least a blister, but they were fine. Just a little red and sore, but no lasting damage.

“I’m never playing one your stupid games again!” she screamed at him and stormed out.

“Yes you will,” Lucas laughed, “You always do.”

Maybe he was right. In the past she’d always tried to find another game, something new.

And in the end Lucas always managed to make it his.

This time though, she promised herself, she’d learned her lesson.


End file.
